In a Room Full of Mirrors
by MerylJeilian
Summary: It starts like this: a small, blond boy shows up at their door, half-dead on his feet and shivering from the cold, and neither Sabine nor Tom can find it in themselves to turn him away. Except he comes in with an extra: a small, flying cat who begs the entire family to hide his boy from danger.
1. Chapter 1

**_I only have the vaguest sense where this is going. Oh well, I'm here for the fun anyways. Enjoy!_**

* * *

It didn't often rain all that hard in Paris, not enough to warrant a city-wide warning of Seine possibly flowing over. It certainly looked like it though, as Sabine peered out the rain-spattered window of her home. The streets were empty, near abandoned, not a soul or a car in sight. She wasn't surprised.

Her husband was downstairs, most likely planning in advance in case the storm got bad enough they'd have to lock themselves in for days on end. Sabine hummed, tapping a finger on the window sill, still keeping an eye on the streets. She wasn't watching out for anything in particular, instead she watched the rain because it was _soothing._

It reminded her of home, surrounded by gardens and watching through another window in another time as nature watered their crops for them.

And then she heard a low, pained noise drifting from below, and Sabine shot up from her seat. She leaned against the window, eyes darting around the street. She didn't imagine that, she knew that sound.

And it didn't take long before Sabine found a small figure staggering towards them from the opposite end of the street, blonde hair barely visible from the rain.

But that wasn't the first thing Sabine noted. The first thing Sabine noted was the subtle lines of red dripping down the boy's form, leaving trails of pinkish water in his wake.

Sabine was about to open the window, offer some help to this child, when he took one more step forward and collapsed face-first onto the street.

A small, high-pitched scream passed through her lips, before darting down the stairs, going straight to the kitchen and calling out her husband, " _Tom!_ "

Tom was sitting on a stool beside the counter up front, jotting down notes for recipes when he noticed the rapid footfalls from upstairs He stood up, face twisting into a concerned expression as his wife emerged and went to him. Her hands gripped at his sleeves, and her wide eyes desperately searched his. The words that tumbled out her lips sent his blood running cold:

"there's a boy outside, Tom. I think he's dying."

It doesn't take much more than that to have the both of them running out into the streets. Tom immediately spots the small, lone figure collapsed on the gravel, a streak of red dripping down towards them. He went to him, being careful not to jostle him too much, and brought him inside where Sabine was waiting with towels, hot coffee and the first aid kit they always kept on hand.

Tom laid the boy down on the floor, grimacing when he found his arms coated in blood. Sabine made a small noise at the back of her throat, fishing out her phone and dialing an ambulance.

"What do we do?" Sabine asked Tom once the dispatcher on the other end assured her they'd be one their way. Tom took one of the towels and tried to dry the boys' hair.

"Wait."

That didn't mean he liked it, though.

The ambulance arrived minutes later, the paramedics taking the boy gently into the car. One of the medics asked Tom about him, who answered as truthfully as he could.

"We'll pay for the bill," Tom said, "May we come along in the ambulance?"

The medic nodded, and the couple climbed in after securing the house. Tom watched over the boy, and contained a small gasp when a pair of green eyes opened to peer up at him.

* * *

The storm ended after 2 days straight of heavy downpour, and as much as Marinette loved Alya and her stay over, she missed her parents, and she wanted her own bed and her own room and her own sketchbook.

Careful not to slip on the way home, Marinette's walk took longer than usual. She didn't mind, school wouldn't be resumed until the day after tomorrow. And when she reached the familiar doors, she took the handle and—

Jumped back and screamed when someone she didn't recognize opened the door.

Blonde hair, green eyes, and a really unhealthy complexion. The boy stared at Marinette before turning back and shouting, "Your daughter's home, sir!"

"Marinette, welcome back!" her father's booming voice echoed from inside, but she wasn't even remotely paying attention. Not even when the large man himself emerged from the kitchen, smelling of vanilla extract and covered in flour, scooping her up in a hug.

No, her attention was on this strange boy, someone she didn't know, who had answered the door and was familiar with the house, maybe, and who she just _didn't know._ He definitely wasn't a customer, the bakery wasn't even open yet. Though...

When her father set her down, Tom clapped a hand on Marinette's shoulder and said, "Adrien, this is Marinette. Marinette, this is Adrien. He's going to stay with us for a bit."

"O..okay?" Marinette stammered, eyes darting between Adrien, her dad, and her ceiling, because what was even going on?

Adrien gave her a tired smile, brought up his hand and said, "Nice to meet you, my name is Adrien Agreste. You're probably confused, huh?"

Marinette nodded numbly.

Tom snorted, "Don't worry, your mom and I will explain over breakfast."

* * *

 _In the darkness and relative safety of the hospital room, Adrien laid flat on his back, staring up at the darkened ceiling._

 _"Plagg?" he asked._

 _"What?" a voice from his pockets replied._

 _Adrien paused almost afraid before, "Where am I?"_

 _"…I don't know."_


	2. Chapter 2

**_Well...this blew way up. Holy crap, you guys!_**

 ** _But anyways, thank you, everyone for the kind words and silent following! :D_**

 ** _Edit: Had to re-upload the chapter. For some reason the site keeps showing I haven't updated._**

* * *

Tom and Sabine were called in after the boy was rushed into ER. The doctor, Hasse, was the one attending him when they walked into the small ward, had one hand holding a clipboard and the other holding a pen, scribbling near furiously at the paper.

He looked up when the couple came in, and gave them a tired, albeit polite and professional, smile, "I assume you're the boy's parents?"

"No," Sabine answered softly, slowly going over to the boy's bedside and smoothing out his unruly hair, "We're taking care of him until we can contact the family."

"That's acceptable," Hasse murmured, turning to Tom and saying, "The child isn't too badly off; a mild case of hypothermia, a small cold, and his injuries weren't infected. It's miraculous."

Hasse paused, and tacked on, "We'll need to keep him overnight and then some. He should be fine by then, albeit he'll still have some symptoms. Mostly the cold."

"Thank you, doctor," Tom smiled at Hasse, who respectfully inclined his head back at the larger man, "Just doing my job. I'll see myself out."

So he did, closing the door behind him.

Night came. Tom had taken the chair and Sabine the small, extra cot tucked away to the side. He shifted uncomfortably in his small, small chair, trying to stretch and shuffle until:

"…I have no idea."

Tom didn't comment on it, didn't comment on the new voice he'd never heard. Instead, he kept an ear out towards the boy, who was silently curling up into a ball.

* * *

It was when the boy was knocked out cold from the drugs his doctors pumped into him did Tom notice…it.

 _It_ being the flying, tiny cat in front of him with an antenna and too sharp green eyes. Had Tom been a lesser man he'd have squealed and tried to throw things at it. Be as it my, Tom was old, and he'd seen too much and met too many people to really be fazed. He's seen odder.

Tom gave the tiny creature a gentle smile, all while placing his giant hands in view, "And who are you?"

"Plagg," the microscopic cat introduced himself simply, floating up to stare at Tom in the eyes, "I'm the kid's… guardian."

"May I ask why he's in the state he's in now?"

Plagg's eyes twitched a bit, before sighing, "Wrong place, wrong time. Wasn't his fault."

 _Or mine._ But neither adult really cared too much about that. Well. Adult and millennia old god. Tom let his eyes drift off Plagg towards the boy on the bed, still hooked up to the IV, complexion so pale it could have been porcelain, looking so small and fragile against the stark whiteness of his sheets.

Tom looked back at Plagg, "Can we help?"

Plagg pursed his lips, eyes darting between his charge and the large man before mumbling out, "Why would you?"

"He's a child," Tom answered, so easily that Plagg couldn't identify anything but sincerity, "He's omeone's one's family. That alone is reason enough. And I don't have the heart to just leave a child to die. So I'll take care of him, until his family arrives."

Plagg closed his eyes and silently thanked the universe his misfortune didn't extend to the quality of people that decided to take Adrien under their wings. Perhaps Tikki was finally rubbing of on him.

At that, Tom looked up expectantly at Plagg, who opened his eyes and sighed, "He doesn't have one. Not here."

A short pause, "Go wake your wife, she'll need to hear this, too. And," he said, stopping Tom mid-way from getting up from his chair, "His name is Adrien Agreste."

* * *

"…S-So," Marinette said later that day, when the sun had started to dip into the horizon and casting a golden red hue over the city of Paris, long after a rather rushed talk about Adrien and his apparent near-death before being saved by her parents, "How are you feeling now? Are you any better?"

They were up at the front of the bakery, carefully cleaning up the display window. Well, she was cleaning the windows. Adrien just wanted some fresh air because he didn't like being cooped up indoors too long. He was wearing a thick jacket, rubbing his palms together as Marinette wiped a rug over the display window.

And Adrien tried not to marvel too much at the girl, because, as he blurted out seconds later without properly mulling over the thought, "You're okay with me? With _this?_ "

Marinette peered at him, half-incredulous, half-concerned, "Well, yeah. Why wouldn't I be?"

Despite the oddness of the situation, it actually wasn't too uncommon for the Dupain-Cheng family to invite strangers into their home. Marinette was just usually informed of the situation beforehand, and usually it was just for dinner.

But Adrien's thought process was obviously gearing into a whole other direction. She could see it now, the questions most of the people her family temporarily took under their wing though, or outright asked:

Because who just upped and offered their home to strangers? Who would just give him food and a roof over his head for no apparent reason? Wasn't that dangerous?

(It never was. The people down the street wouldn't send any dangerous fellow on their doorstep, and her father was insightful enough to usually pick out the rotten characters right off the bat.)

"Isn't this… _weird?_ " Adrien pressed, face twisting into an expression Marinette couldn't quite pin-point, "I mean, your parents pretty much just picked me off the street."

"Sounds like them," Marinette's face warmed with a smile, "It's not weird, trust me. You're welcome here."

"I—" he stammered, raising his hands then immediately not knowing what to do with them. He shoved them into his pockets, burying half his face into the high collar of his jacket, then looked up to the intensely interesting sky, "…Thank you."

Marinette's soft laugh made him look over to her again, lit by the sunset and smiling at him with her entire body, her eyes glowing blue, "You can stay for as long as you need."

* * *

 _Later that night, Marinette's parents pulled her to the side while Adrien was in the bathroom to introduce her to an apparent god of misfortune._


	3. Chapter 3

**_First off: thank you all so much for all the views, reviews, faves and follows! :D_**

 ** _Also: some bad news. I kinda broke my wrist, sooo. No immediate new chapters. This one is one of my stock chapters._**

 ** _Edit: Because the site had't slipped in my latter AN, everyone is roughly several months younger than their canon counterparts :)_**

* * *

Sabine hadn't just taken the existence of Plagg in stride, she'd smiled and offered both him and Tom some privacy if needed. Plagg had to fight to keep his 'cool, calm millennia old god' façade, because what the hell. What the hell was this. This wasn't _normal._ Humans, century after century, were either surprised or in heavy denial about the existence of gods. Or the existence of a god that they didn't worship.

 _Evidently_ these two humans were proving themselves to be an exception. Plagg wasn't too sure what he felt about that.

* * *

"He's in danger." Plagg had said, as though the single sentence would warrant as an explanation in and of itself.

"What kind of danger?" it was almost disproportionate to hear such a soft voice from a gargantuan man.

"…The kind your police won't be able to help with."

Tom nodded, slowly.

Plagg was still waiting for the dam to break.

Man and god stared each other down, before the soft chuckle from Sabine's lips broke the quiet tension between them, "He needs to hide then? I refuse to keep a child inside all his life, though."

"He won't need to be kept under lock and key," Plagg informed them, "Just. Laying low. He can still go outside, hell he can frolic in the sun, but he can't bring attention to himself. Not the wrong kind."

"This danger," Tom sounded out slowly, "Can we protect ourselves from it? Will our daughter be affected?"

"No one but my boy will be affected, I can assure you," Plagg replied after some thought, "In return for being so…" –odd?—, "…hospitable, my boy and I will try to protect you and your family from what we can."

Sabine's eyebrows raised, "I thought you said he shouldn't attract attention?"

"I said _Adrien_ can't attract attention," Plagg corrected her.

A small, slightly pained sound drifted towards them from the bed, where the boy was starting to thrash in his sleep.

"We'll talk some other time," Plagg tossed over his shoulder as he whizzed towards the boy.

Tom watched with mute amazement when Adrien calmed near instantaneously when the god reached him, floating above the boy's form like a guardian. As a guardian.

* * *

It had been roughly a week since Adrien's rather…unexpected entrance into her life began, and while he was getting better, he was getting more withdrawn. He almost never talked during work, when they were both at the bakery's front, or during dinner, content to shrink into the background.

Marinette did not like this.

She wasn't sure how she'd go about the whole…get Adrien to come out of his shell thing, though. Not when she wasn't the shining poster child for social confidence.

But Marinette was _determined_ among other traits, and she would get this done. She swore it.

* * *

…She'd get that done _eventually,_ because the appearance of a god of misfortune kind of threw a wrench in her plans. Mostly because _what is happening is Adrien a prophet or whatever?!_

The tiny god-cat, cat-god, whatever started cackling in the air.

It was then that Marinette realized she said all of that out loud.

It was also then that Marinette wanted to curl into herself out of existence, because what. What was that, Marinette? What _was that?!_

She could hear herself emit a high, keening noise form the back of her throat.

"Hey," the tiny god said after several minutes of chortling at her misery, "Kid. Adrien's no Moses. He's just my charge. Who," he paused, face stoning into something more serious, "you are going to…protect. So to speak."

"H-How?" Marinette stammered, "And from what?"

"The 'what' you can let me take care of," tiny cat-god said, waving a bored hand in the air, "All you need to do is get him acquainted in the city, help him get comfy."

"How is that supposed to protect him?" Marinette questioned, uncurling a bit to sit on the floor instead.

"It'll mean he won't get lost, he'll know how to get around and dodge sketchy places, and he'll relax, which means no stress, which means no reckless abandon and bullshit like that. Protection in the form of information. Now is the perfect time to do it too, considering the 'what' you were asking about before isn't anywhere near here yet. Are you following?"

"Yeah," Marinette nodded, a little slowly, "I think so…"

"Great," then he yawned, releasing a sound so cute Marinette almost made an 'aww' sound before reminding herself that. Marinette. No. That is a god. They probably don't appreciate being called cute.

"One last thing," she squeaked after him, right before the tiny god seemed to whiz over to the plate of cheese on the counter top, "What's your name?"

"Plagg," he supplied, then went over to the cheese.

* * *

Okay, _now_ it was in action. Her plan, that is. Also her apparent duty over him, but that tied into her plan anyway. So.

Marinette strode over to Adrien, who was quietly eating a croissant, stopped in front of him and took a deep breath.

Adrien stared up at her mid-chew.

Marinette told herself that their guest didn't have nice, green eyes and asked, "Do you want to go out with me?"

And _oh god,_ Marinette shrieked inside the safety of her mind as Adrien's eyes bulged out of their sockets, _what the heck was that?!_


	4. Chapter 4

"I…I mean—" Marinette spluttered, waving her arms in a pancicked gesture, "I just— We—! I…I just really want someone with me for today'sdonationrunandIcouldreallyappreciatesomehelpsoifyoucouldjust—"

"Breathe!" Adrien squeaked out, jumping to his feet and trying to calm her down, "Breathe! Slow down. One word at a t-time."

Marinette made a distressed, unhappy sound and covered her face with her hands.

The stammering was apparently very entertaining, as they both heard an amused chortle from above. Adrien lost all color from his face. Marinette peeked up from between her fingers.

Plagg was floating near the ceiling, munching on bits of Camembert her parents had bought some time ago. His green eyes glowed with mirth. Marinette's widened with horror.

"Plagg," Adrien nearly pleaded, refusing to look up, or at her, despite looking a little green around the edges, "Plagg. Please. No."

"We'd love to go adventurin' with ya, kid," Plagg replied for him, swooping down from the ceiling and onto Adrien's hair, who made a dying whale noise at the back of his throat, "Where we going?"

"Uh," Marinette's eyes darted about, hands brought up to her chest, "I was about to go for the bakery's donation run."

"…Donation run?" Adrien asked, still sounding a little faint. Marinette nodded, brightening a bit.

"Yeah, donation run. We usually donate the rest of our left overs every week," she started to explain, "This week, well, Papa told me that I was gonna go to more places than usual, and that I could ask you if you wanted to go ou— _ooon_ the run. With me. Which was what I asked."

"Y-yeah, I got that at least," Adrien let out a small, awkward laugh, rubbing the back of his neck, "So, do we go now?"

Marinette nodded, still avoiding eye contact, "Yeah. Yeah, just...give me a sec? I'll go get Papa."

Several minutes later, they're both carrying boxes down the street filled to the brim with pastries.

They reach whatever destinations they, or rather, Marinette had in her log and Adrien tried not to wonder at the sheer amount of stops they had to go through. Small shops, orphanages, homeless groups under bridges. He'd caught a conversation that they usually kept moving and a part of him marveled of the fact that, somehow, the family kept track of them anyway just to give them food.

Plagg made a mumble inside his overshirt and Adrien ignored him.

Finally, hours later when the moon was well overhead, Marinette told him they were at their last stop. Adrien saw the rows of tents and knew that it was another homeless camp.

With Adrien's boxes empty, Marinette told him to rest up at one of the benches while she made the last round. He did, setting the boxes down beside him and looking up at the dark sky.

"Hey Plagg."

No reply.

Adrien stifled a sigh and tried to poke at his kwami, only to find...nothing. A sharp stab of panic pierced through his mind, trying to keep his face blank and unconcerned while he took off his overshirt to find him. Nothing, nothing. Plagg wasn't with him.

Adrien shakily put it back on, trying to scan his memory of the last time Plagg talked. Not too long ago. But where was he? How was he supposed to find him? How-

"Hey kid," Plagg yawned from behind him, lazily floating towards his charge, "Lemme sleep."

And he flew into his overshirt again and Adrien goggled because what.

"Where did you go?!" he whisper-screamed, trying not to be too conspicuous screaming down at his chest.

"Business, kid." Plagg's muffled reply was drowned out by another voice, saying:

"Young one, I believe your friend is calling you."

"This isn't over," Adrien mumbled down at Plagg's semi-smug smirk, then looked up to see an old man standing in front of him, leaning heavily on a cane.

"My...my friend, sir?" Adrien asked politely.

"Yes," he nodded, bringing up a shaky, wrinkled finger to point at Marinette on the far side of the camp, holding only one box, surrounded by kids, trying to wave him over. Her face screamed for help.

Adrien smiled.

"Good luck, child," the old man said, eventually wobbling away before Adrien could reply.

"I...thank you, sir?"

Adrien scratched at the back of his head, before shrugging and going to Marinette, who was currently being defeated by a hoard of children by the time he got to her.

* * *

 _"Plagg!"_

 _"Wayzz."_

 _"Where…?"_

 _"Don't ask me that, I don't know either."_

 _"What about Tikki? Does she know-?_ _"_

 _"No one knows anything about this! We're on our own!"_

* * *

Tom found himself staring out the window to find a small, purple blur fly by his vision. He blinked, rubbing his eyes.

* * *

 ** _So. Thing's are a little shorter, but that doesn't mean that I don't appreciate the sheer support this story has been getting! Seriously, thanks guys!_**


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